All Roads Lead to Castletown
by nolandsman
Summary: Link works a job he hates to keep what remains of his family afloat. When the appearance of a mysterious Sheikah and the disappearance of his little sister throw his life into chaos, he tries his best to keep afloat himself. But in the bizarre underworld of Hyrule's biggest city, it's sink or swim, and he doesn't quite know how to swim. (modern/Sci-fi AU)
1. Not How a Day Should Go

Link's day begins as it always does: with a short gasp and mild head trauma.

He bolts from his pillow in a panic, flying from the top of his bed and into the bottom of his sister's. The nuts and bolts of their old bunk rattle him awake, and, as usual, he immediately forgets the contents of his dream. He rubs the perpetual swollen lump at his hairline as Aryll, who in lieu of a proper alarm clock counts on his nightmares to wake both of them at precisely the same hour every day, groans above him.

"I don't want this," she mutters. "I don't want this for my life."

Link has never understood his little sister's matinal mantra. It seems a little too existential to him to be a rough translation of "let me sleep a little longer," but he never allows her musings—existential or not—to force him into acting as her snooze button. If he has to have nightmares, he figures he ought to put them to good use, and that use is waking Aryll up each day just in time to be hopelessly late for school.

"I'm afraid this _is_ your life," he says, realizing he's talking to himself as much as his sister.

"School isn't for another two hours," she yawns.

"And it takes you three to get ready, so get up."

Link drags himself down the hall to the bathroom, where after shooing a prodigious family of cockroaches, he begins to put on his liar's uniform. He slips on his collared shirt (12 rupees, discount bin at Malo Mart), his pants and jacket (35 rupees each, same discount bin at Malo Mart), his shoes (18 rupees, secondhand but polished to near-perfection), and his tie (free, found in a cardboard box of his father's old possessions), and tops the look with an empty briefcase, which he pulled from a dumpster behind Red Lion Technologies, Inc. He brushes his teeth, shaves more out of respect for the ritual than any sort of necessity, attempts to tame his hair and fails, then follows the scent of his grandmother's cooking to the dingy kitchen.

His breakfast and lunch sit in boxes on the table. Grandma turns from the stove, smiling in the lamplight (in an hour or so dawn will pour through the kitchen window—or at least it _would,_ had Bolson Construction not built the bigger—and infinitely better—apartment tower between their window and the sun). She shuffles over to see him off.

"Are you staying late tonight again?" she asks, straightening his tie.

"Not tonight."

"You ask me, Bo works you far too hard for that pittance he sends home with you."

"I can't complain," Link sighs. It isn't as if he has nothing to complain about—he just knows as a replaceable peon he has no right to. At best, he can prostrate himself and beg for a fraction of a rupee more, but he's not stupid. Asking for money means getting sacked.

"Well, I'll have something waiting for you when you get home. You can watch the night races with us—it's Epona's last before retirement." Grandma stares at the poorly-made knot in his tie for a moment, wrinkled frown widening. "Though I know what they mean by retirement. It's quite sad what's done to those poor beasts… Ah well, I've got my weight in rupees on her winning, and I'll be damned if I'm not going to prove a point to all those old biddies at the bridge club." She shoves his food into his hands and pushes him toward the door.

"You can't keep gambling away our income," Link says.

"Oh, you'll see. It'll net me enough to pay off Aryll's slate."

"We can hope," Link mutters under his breath, but he knows better. He knows better than to hope that Grandma can pull a gold rupee from her gambling ass—especially betting on old horses. As he leaves the apartment, shuffling along the bug-eaten carpet to the stairs, he calculates the months it'll take to pay off what amounts to Aryll's school supplies. Seems like every student needs a goddamn slate now, and by the time next year rolls around she'll need a newer model to keep pace with her peers. Link isn't spectacular at mathematics, but he is a practiced pessimist, a master of down-rounding and error-accounting and worst-scenario-calculations, and once he adds up his disposable income, Grandma's spending, the comical interest rates on which Red Lion Technologies prides itself, rent, and the occasional Noble Pursuit to keep him alive to earn anything at all, he concludes the most reasonable payment plan falls somewhere in the hundreds of years.

Link loves Aryll, arguably more than anything, but he'll be damned if that girl isn't milking him dry. Last week Grandma took her out to buy new shoes, and they _had_ to be groosenators, lest the cruelty of her teenage peers be released in full force upon her. Luckily, Grandma had the foresight to buy them two sizes too big so Aryll would still have room to grow into them. She'll just have to wear several pairs of socks for the next year or so, and Link has faith she'll be able to hide that from her classmates easily enough.

He has, like everyone in Castletown, considered buying a slate for himself, but he can't fathom why he would need it. He could fathom why he _wanted_ it, and it certainly had something to do with Red Lion's aggressive advertising campaigns that left half the streets (even the ones in Link's district) plastered with images of slate-related glory, leisure, and status. He supposes he would only wear it as a status symbol, but he would probably rarely use it, and he can't have Bo making laughing comments about how "Boy, I don't pay you enough to buy something like that!"

Halfway to work the sun decides to rise, grey and only half-warm, over the eastern high-rises of the city. It tries its damnedest to illuminate the street, but it can't compete with the flashing, colored lights that line the sidewalks and billboards. Most of them point up to Castletown's latest obsessions—an up-and-coming Zora band, the newest model of Sheikah slate, the smiling face of the male-model-turned-corporate-icon Groose (Link is unsure if he has a surname), whose line of clothing is immensely popular among teenagers. Link blames Groose for his sister's insistence on getting the most inexcusably overpriced shoes in the city, but he supposes the man needs to net a veritable fortune to buy enough hairspray to make a pompadour of that magnitude defy gravity.

Link tries to get himself to think of something besides Groose's tantalizingly punchable smile, but when he arrives at the offices of Bo & Bo & Bo & Co, the sparkling redhead appears to be the topic of conversation.

"I hear he's doing a… what's it… mash-around with the Indigo-Go's," says the receptionist.

"You mean like a single or something?" asks a man in a poorly-ironed shirt. "Or like… a concert? Because I'd give my left testicle to see him survive being on stage at one of those."

The Indigo-Go's (apostrophe included) is, of course, Aryll's favorite band. Grandma and Link both refuse to let her attend a concert, not so much because of the exorbitant prices, but because the band has something of a traditionalist streak, and they insist on playing Zora instruments as they were meant to—underwater. Their venues are so wet that at least one non-Zora concertgoer drowns per performance (on bad days, at least one per song), but the more casualties accrued at an Indigo-Go's concert, the higher the magazines rate the musical quality.

Link spends a moment trying to imagine Groose onstage with the Indigo-Go's, but that necessitates imagining Groose's hair wet, which is, according to University of North Castletown's leading psychologists, mentally and emotionally impossible. So Link gives up, forgoes joining the conversation, and makes for what he refers to as his office. He walks past the wall of three generations of identical Bos immortalized in oil paint, turns the first corner and arrives at a metal door. With a jingle of keys, he's inside.

The lightless closet has barely enough room for him to change out of his suit and into his work clothes. He carefully folds his pants and jacket, collared shirt and tie, places his shoes aside, and pulls on his boots and brown coveralls, dappled like a pinto with stains and streaks of bleach. He grabs his bucket, mop and other cleaning supplies, reassures himself with the promise that he gets to go home before the sun sets, and bumps into his boss on the way out.

"Oh, thank the gods," Bo says with a wide, almost magnanimous smile. "You're just in time. Someone left you a present in the second-floor bathroom and the stench is starting to spread."

* * *

Whenever Grandma asks what exactly Link _does_ at Bo  & Bo & Bo & Co, he replies he cleans up after his coworkers, mostly. He knows she takes this to mean he goes through their paperwork and corrects mistakes, double-checks mathematics and prices, and occasionally dispels financial disputes. Which is why nearly every month or so she concludes that without his ridiculously hard work the office would collapse entirely, and encourages him to ask "Mr. Bo, who is, after all, like a family friend" for a promotion.

Link doesn't like to try his luck—it was only due to the earnest supplication of Bo's daughter Ilia, a schoolmate and sort-of girlfriend, that he landed this gig in the first place. Unfortunately, Ilia is now bettering herself at veterinary school and can't act as a shield against the more miserly aspects of her father, so Link has long since given up trying to coax some liberality from the man. The first and only time he gave into Grandma's insistences and asked Bo for work that was a little cleaner, the man cheerfully promoted him from janitor to "sanitation engineer" (no pay raise), and babbled on about his generosity so much Link was thoroughly deterred from asking again.

So Link takes what little treasures he can. He finds dropped green rupees in the stairwell, lost office supplies, watches, sunglasses, and occasionally a little plastic bag of Sheikah firegrass floating in a toilet cistern. He leaves these bags alone, not necessarily because he knows it would be obvious the thief is the company sanitation engineer, but because he's the first to admit that anyone might need a puff or two to get through a workday dealing with Bo's overwhelming energy.

By the end of his shift, he collects eighteen rupees (all green) and a discarded but still pristine pair of silk socks. When he returns to his broom closet office to change back into his suit, he stores his generous haul in his briefcase. He's done well today—much better than he usually does, and he's in a good mood by the time he makes his way down the stairs to the building's entrance. He falls into the tide of other workers, hiding himself among two dozen suits and identical brown briefcases that belong to the lucky men and women who go home at a decent time. Fortunately, this camouflage works; he makes it safely to the street without Bo pouncing on him with an extra mess to clean (for free, of course—no true member of the Bo & Bo & Bo & Co family would ever ask for overtime pay).

He breathes a sigh of relief, congratulating himself on the day. He's got eighteen extra rupees in his bag, a new pair of (likely fungus-free) socks, and still an hour or so of daylight. And now he can head straight home, throw off his shoes, eat dinner, and watch Grandma lose her weight in rupees to her frenemies at the bridge club by betting on an old racehorse.

On the corner opposite Bo's humble office building, a bluish Rito stands with an accordion, warbling away. Its case sits open on the sidewalk, and as Link approaches, he can make out the tune of an old folk song. He stops to enjoy the musical narratives of heroes and beasts and kings and magic (magic is a particular favorite topic of songs no one sings anymore), and after a few minutes he decides it's worth it to leave a rupee in the accordion case. Feeling something like a king himself, he opens his briefcase and drops in one of his newfound rupees. At the clink of money, the Rito glances at the case, and promptly changes his tune.

"Oh, behold the miser-man," warbles the bird. "Who thinks that in this poor land, to leave but a single rupee, passes for generosity."

Link learns at that moment how a beak can frown. He wonders if it's not to late to reach down and take his hard-earned pittance back, but he _had_ enjoyed the music, until it took a turn for the insulting. Instead he drops in a second rupee, and after getting a somewhat forgiving look from the Rito, moves on, reminding himself to wait until he's got a fiver before he leaves a tip again. Link begins to hum, picking up where the bird left off, outlining the tune about a princess putting down some sort of vague existential threat to her kingdom. He remembers the song as one his mother once sang, but he cannot recall the words.

The sounds of the accordion follow him to the end of the street. He turns a few corners and passes through a block of thumping noise, adjusting his humming to the beat. Deep in the earth below him, he knows there's some Goron project or another underway. The higher-ups in town have been talking about building some sort of underground thoroughfare—a fever dream conceived by the public services unit of Red Lion—but everyone aboveground is fairly sure the Gorons only use their tunnels for their races. For the most part, no one minds—it's hard enough as a Goron in the city to roll from here to there in a hurry without breaking windows or bending streetlamps, barreling through tenements or disrupting traffic. Though there are certainly complaints when Goronic construction grounds pop up unexpectedly, thumping and shaking and throwing citizens from their bicycles, spilling wine from glasses and vibrating furniture off balconies. It is best to watch you head in such zones.

Perhaps it is due to the thumping of construction that Link does not hear the hurried footsteps approaching him, or perhaps because they belong to the shiny black groosenators on a pair of silent Sheikah feet. In either case, he doesn't notice he's being overtaken until the runner bumps him on the shoulder and sends him stumbling.

The Sheikah slows only to glance at him over his shoulder. "Sorry—I mean watch it!" he growls, and prances on, hauling a briefcase (like everyone else's, clearly from the Red Lion Technologies). Bumping into a Sheikah—especially one in a hurry and clearly underdressed for his office job—is an unusual occurrence, given their rarity, but it is one Link can recover from without counting this day as unusual. What does strike him as unusual, however, is the veritable army of pursuers that turn the corner after the runner.

Like anyone with half a brain, Link knows the sudden appearance of armed security forces is the last time to start trouble. So when a dozen men in black slacks and blacker jackets screech to a halt at the end of the street, he freezes. His heart jumps to his throat but he stays put, eyeing the line of helmets, goggles and Red Lion Private Security logos. He raises his arms above his head, one hand still clutching his briefcase. He expects to be asked where the presumable culprit ran, and he fully prepares himself to point down a perpendicular alley to direct these gentlemen after their quarry and out of his hair (which is standing quite at attention on the back of his neck), but they do not seem interested in talking. When one man at the forefront raises a hand and the unmistakable beep of a charging guardian gun meets Link's ears, his frozen mind thaws just enough to tell him to run. Heart in his throat, hand shaking, he turns and takes off after the Sheikah.

It is common knowledge that the nicer one's clothing, the poorer one runs in it. Link's brogans slip on the concrete and his dangling tie flips over itself and straight into his face (had his shoes been genuine Hateno leather or his tie real Gerudo silk they might've been much more disobedient, but as it is, it's still a second-hand outfit, and perhaps it is this cheapness that saves him). Still clutching his briefcase, he stumbles to the alleyway, swiping his untamable tie away from his eyes. He sprints almost to the beat of the massive drums far below him, and he manages to turn the corner just as the sharp heat of a weaponized beam screams past his ear. He stumbles into the alley after the Sheikah, scrambling away from the sounds of footsteps and shouting. Ahead of him, in the tower of light at the far end of the alley, the Sheikah again disappears.

 _How the hell is he so fast?_ Link thinks, lungs burning, feet aching. He doesn't dare look behind him as he reaches the alley's end, but he can feel the shadows of the men scramble after him, he can hear the high-pitched ring of their charging weaponry. He bursts into the adjacent street, turns, and throws himself toward another alley, hoping that if he racks up enough rights and lefts he might be able to lose this mistaken group of pursuers and resume his almost-good day.

As he flies past a pair of dumpsters, wheezing heavily, a sharp voice catches up to him.

"You! Behind here!"

A hand flies from the shadows and grips his shoulder. He's tugged from his feet to the space behind the dumpsters, into the safety of foul-smelling shadows. He stumbles, clutching his briefcase of treasures to his chest, and finds himself staring into the half-covered face of his Sheikah assailant. The stranger lifts a finger to his face to silence him, and then glances over the top of the dumpsters to see the shadows of their pursers march across the asphalt. The Sheikah crouches, takes a deep breath, and his fingers begin tangling and disentangling themselves like they're attempting to play the world's smallest harp.

Link is in the midst of wondering why this stranger is wiggling his fingers like an idiot when a dark puff of smoke curls from between them, spreading and enshrouding the dumpsters.

It's certainly a good thing the spell is one of silence, since at the appearance of magic, Link lets loose a little cry of surprise. The Sheikah's red eyes roll, and he reaches out a hand to pinch Link's lips.

"It's not perfect," the stranger whispers, "so be quiet."

Link and the Sheikah listen to the sound of boots run past. His heart sits in his throat, beating so hard he wouldn't be surprised if it pops outright. They stay crouched for far too long, but when the noise quiets down, and the shadows of their pursuers disappear, the Sheikah lets out a sigh.

"What the _hell_ was that?" Link hisses.

"Private security force," the stranger says. His voice is soft, light—he sounds young. Link wonders why a kid like him is embroiled in this kind of cat-and-mouse business, but he has some idea it has something to do with whatever's inside that briefcase. All he knows for sure is that he can't get dragged into it.

"Look, I don't know who you are or why you're running," he whispers, "but whatever the reason, I want nothing to do with it."

The upper half of the Sheikah's face gives him an exasperated look. "Then why did you follow me? What were you thinking?"

"I didn't _mean_ to!" Link growls. "They shot at me! What did you expect me to do?"

"Run the other way?" The stranger slumps against the dumpster, dropping his briefcase at his side.

"At least we're safe now." He is not sure if he's lying—he just wants to remove himself from whatever this is and go home. He can almost taste Grandma's soup on his tongue. "So, you go your way, and I'll go mine. And next time you're gonna run around doing criminal shit, make sure you do it with a unique briefcase."

The Sheikah sighs. "That's the _point_ of it, isn't it? It's nondescript." He brushes off his knees, wiggles his toes in his groosenators and takes a deep breath. "You might want to keep your head down for a while. They'll be out looking for us for the next couple days at least. I'm sorry, I really am."

When he sees the guilty look in the Sheikah's eyes, he softens his tone. "I don't live far from here; I can make it home. You sure you're going to be all right?"

"Yeah."

"Take care of yourself." He stands, but the Sheikah's hand grips his wrist, pulling him back into the shadows. His heart, which has just finally slowed to a reasonable pace, soars again to his throat.

"Shit, shit shit _shit_ ," the stranger breathes. "She's here."

A blurry glow appears at the edges of Link's vision. Something intangible, something almost electric, forces his hair to stand on end. His skin tingles, and a cold feeling creeps from his feet upward. He looks around for any clue to the source of the discomfiting sensation. When the feeling intensifies and the metal dumpsters start to rattle, he lifts his wide, bewildered eyes at the stranger. When he speaks, there's a heavy, electric tinge to his voice.

"What's happening?"

The Sheikah's hair is standing on end, and he's desperately weaving another spell. Link can barely hear his answer over the high-pitched ring of the metal around them.

"Impa is what's happening—"

With a screeching of metal and the banging of a thousand pounds of garbage tossed against itself, the dumpsters take off, careening up the alley and crashing into the fence at its end. Link's stomach drops as metal bends and trash rains down the walls—he can do nothing but stare at the mess, ears ringing, heart thumping. He barely notices the Sheikah grabbing his trembling hand and pulling him down the alleyway. As he's dragged away, he catches a brief glimpse of a slim figure in a suit, a bluish glow in its hand, coming toward them—

Suddenly, Link is enveloped in a storm of cloudy grey. He coughs, skin burning, as the smoke pours into his nose and mouth, searing his tongue. He feels himself lighten, dissipating into the horrifying mist—erased, unmade. His joints pop apart, his veins and capillaries unthread, his breath dissipates. He throws his head back and tries to yell, tries to spit out the burning taste, but he finds he has no mouth. A cursory glance at the rest of him reveals he's got nothing else, either. For a brief moment, when he finally becomes nothing, he is quite sure he knows this is what it feels like to die.

 _Shit_ , he thinks. _And I didn't even get to die at home._

He's not quite prepared to meet the goddess whose church services he's been avoiding for more than a decade, so he struggles against the mist, swimming with arms and legs he does not have. He makes his way toward a bright swirl that liberally might be considered the proverbial light. It's a pity he can't remember if he's supposed to swim toward or away from it, since no one told him if the end of the tunnel led toward the light of life or the light of heaven.

He's swimming aimlessly (and limblessly) through the smoke-choked ether, thinking up excuses to tell Hylia for his acute and chronic impiety when he suddenly reappears.

Quickly, and all too painfully, he is remade. He feels his skeleton reassemble, his muscles reattach to his bones, his breath pour into his lungs, and his skin tighten around him. It is unpleasant, but the sensation, being a sensation at all, comes with a wave of relief. A sudden onset of gravity pulls him to the ground. His feet sink into dark mud, the taste of smoke still lingers on his tongue, but he is somehow, miraculously, alive.

The stranger pops into existence beside him in a puff of grey, and celebrates with a fist in the air. "I didn't think that would work!" he says, before gripping Link and looking him over. "You have all your parts still, haven't you? Haven't lost anything important on the way?" Link just stares, voiceless, and the Sheikah prods him. "Shit, did you leave your tongue back there? Your _lungs_? Oh gods, I should've known better than to do it without a slate—"

"I'm… fine," Link wheezes, finally. He takes a moment to look around. They seem to have landed on the banks of a filthy canal, and the buildings at its edge are unrecognizable to him. A few discarded cans and an abandoned shoe float on the grimy surface of the water. He holds his aching head and reaches down for his briefcase. "Where are we?"

"Somewhere near the Zora housing districts, by the smell of it." The Sheikah drags Link away from the filthy water and up the slope to the street. "But we're not too far from where we were. I'd be careful going back. Do you have money for a ride?"

"Yeah…" he says, still stunned. He's still got a fare's worth of green rupees in his bag.

"Good, then we should probably get out of here." He knows the Sheikah is beaming, though a black scarf covers his mouth. "I can't believe that _worked!_ I've been torturing myself forever over that one."

"That… smoke thing?"

"Yeah. It's an old Sheikah technique." The stranger drags his groosenators proudly across the asphalt, wiping the putrid mud from them. "That'll show Impa who she's dealing with."

"Look," Links starts, holding his head. "I don't really care who Impa is, or what you've shown her. I just want to know that I'll be able to get home without getting shot at."

"Well get going, then. If you hurry you can probably get out of the neighborhood before they catch up, or figure out where we went. I'll lead them away—give them a tasty breadcrumb trail to chew on." There is a note of pride in his voice—though the way it rises and falls, Link is no longer quite certain it belongs to a male. He decides he doesn't care—he just wants to get home, he just wants the mud off his shoes and Grandma's soup in his mouth. He turns to go.

"Hey," the Sheikah says, and he slows, still in a daze. "Stay safe." With that, the stranger gives him an eyes-only smile, grabs his—or possibly her—briefcase and flies off into the inky dusk.

Link stares for a moment, baffled, before beginning the long journey home. He wanders in a daze until he finds a dinky brown cab on three wheels, metal plates warped into the shape of an extinct species of sand seal once known for its speed and liveliness.

"Fifteen rupees for the street seal to Outset," his driver says, a Goron who's apparently had to punch out one eye of the giant seal to look out over the street, since the windshield hovers somewhere around his obscenely muscled midriff.

Link sighs, eager to rest his feet for a while and have a good long think about what exactly transpired this inauspicious evening. Unfortunately, when he lifts his briefcase to search for his rupees, he finds it's locked.

The street seal rumbles away, leaving Link in the darkening alley, bewildered, tired, and some reason, clinging as if for dear life to a stranger's briefcase.

* * *

So I'm gonna go out and say it: I don't really like modern AUs. And since I don't really like myself either, I decided to try it. No idea if this sort of lazy writing is going to work out, or if I'll continue this, but I thought out of all the Zeldas, BotW was the one closest to being compatible with this sort of concept (it's the slate). Since my stories are based on TP and OoT mostly, I decided to give WW and BotW a little attention.

The title will probably change. Hopefully it will change. If I think up something that's not utter shite. I'm iffy on the tense, too-I like the immediacy of present tense but it's almost as if this wants to be written in the past... ah well. I'm open to suggestions, as usual.


	2. Pigtails and Cocktails

Whenever Aryll finds herself in trouble, it's always her pigtails that save her.

Right before lunch (which Aryll plans on lasting the rest of her school day), when Owlan is babbling to the girls in the class about the horrors of a particularly mundane and wholly familiar situation of puberty he doesn't dare refer to as anything but the "blood moon," Aryll finds herself dragged from her seat, down the hall, and straight into the cold presence of Principal Shad.

She can tell by the way the man's comically magnified eyes narrow behind his glasses that she's in for a stern talking-to. So she raises a finger to curl one of her blonde pigtails and prepares herself.

"I think you know why you're here," Shad says.

"Not really, no," she answers. She keeps her voice light and a little fearful. In truth, she really can't guess why Shad has summoned her to his office. Truancy, disruption of class, poor grades, vandalism—they all seem equally possible.

"Truancy, disruption of class, poor grades," Shad starts, and Aryll almost sighs in relief that her latest limerick on the second-floor bathroom stall hasn't been discovered—or at least attributed to her. "Worst of all, Mr. Horwell said he saw you and a few other kids in the alley behind the building with a bottle of Hebra whisky."

"What?" Aryll starts, eyes wide. Her surprise is only half-feigned—she can't believe Horwell has eyes sharp enough to read the bottle's label from his classroom window.

"Don't pretend not to know, Aryll. You know better than that."

She bites her lip. Her eyes wet at the pain, and she raises them—big and brown and hurt, to Principal Shad's steely gaze. "Well… Principal Shad… the truth is I don't want to lie to you." She congratulates herself on the first tear that falls. "But you know what the others would do to me if they found out I admitted it?"

Shad gives her a dubious look.

"I didn't _want_ to," she says. "It was _gross_ , I mean, it burned my throat and I didn't even _like_ it… It was just those kids were older and they made me…" Second tear down, about three to go and one more twirl of her pigtails and she'd be home free. "And I was glad it was over but I wasn't going to _tell_ on them—you know what they'd do to me?"

Shad's frown softens. "You should've come to me. I wouldn't have told anyone."

"I _should've,_ " she says. "But I didn't, and you can't tell anyone that I admitted it—"

"We've already talked to the others. They know you didn't rat them out."

She pulls at her pigtails and grits her teeth. "I promise, I promise so much that I will _not_ hang out with those kids anymore. I'm sorry, I really am." Two tears at once now—she's on a roll. "It won't happen again."

"That's what you say _every time_ , Aryll."

"I mean it this time! I just was in the wrong place at the wrong moment, I swear. I just wanted to see what they were doing and they called me over and made me have some! You think I _like_ whisky? Do you know how _old_ I am, Principal Shad?"

"Um…" his eyebrows wrinkle over thick round glasses. "Fourteen?"

"You think fourteen-year-olds _like_ whisky? You think we drink it because we like it and not because we're pressured into it?"

A few extra tears stream down Aryll's face and she twists her hair anxiously. Shad stares at her, eyes wandering from one of her pigtails to the other, then the first again, then the other. He heaves a heroic sigh. "I am willing to overlook this," he says, "but I can't keep ignoring your absences any longer. I'm going to send you home with a letter to your family."

"That's fine, I'll get it right to them," Aryll says, thanking her pigtails. This letter, like all the previous letters, will go straight into the dumpster behind her apartment, undelivered.

"You'll forgive me if I don't believe you," Shad says.

Damn it, the man learns. Shad is a newcomer to the position, but Aryll knows she can't count on his inexperience. He'll lose his zeal after a while. They all do.

"Look, Aryll, I need to know that you won't just throw it out. If you don't return tomorrow with this signed by one or both parents—"

"My parents are dead," Aryll says, wondering if she should start crying anew.

" _You_ _know what I mean, Aryll_. If this isn't returned to me with at least one signature on it by the morning, and if that signature bearer does not agree to meet with me about your truancies, we will have to discuss alternative methods of education."

By alternative methods, Aryll knows he means Mrs. Marie's School of Joy for Rebellious Girls. She's heard the horror stories, every girl has. Aryll knows better than to believe them—entirely. She's met a few girls from there, and they were so boring she can't help but half-believe the rumors that freshman are lobotomized upon entry. "I get it," she mutters.

But Shad's seems to have found his groove with the topic. "You know where I'm talking about, Aryll. There are no slates allowed in there. You'll have nothing to distract you from your studies. I imagine you'll be immensely bored."

"I get it," she says again, louder.

"So if you want to stay here, with the friends you have, with all your favorite things, with an _incredibly_ merciful principal, you'll bring this paper back in signed." He drops it in front of her, and for once in the short time she's known him, she suspects he might have a backbone somewhere in that scrawny little torso.

She takes the letter and slips it into her pocket, frowning.

"You may go," Shad says, almost proudly. "Also, take off your leather jacket when you're in class—it's not part of the uniform, you know."

"I will."

" _Now_ , Aryll."

She makes a show of shrugging it off as she exits Shad's office, but puts it back on when she decides she doesn't want to go back to class anyway. She slips past any wandering teachers, hall monitors, or snitches, gives a friendly wave to Dampé the custodian (who's long since run out of shits to give about student behavior), and spends the rest of the day in a nearby café, tinkering away on her new slate. It always surprises her that once she's got some privacy and a steaming Romani coffee in front of her, she's a model of productivity. From noon until sunset, her hands click away at the screen, occasionally taking a break to twist a pigtail, or the tail of a plastic pig that dangles as a good-luck charm from her backpack. When she realizes the particularly dark shade of gray sky means she should be getting home, Aryll packs her things and marvels at the lost hours. She doesn't lament them, since in her mind time flying is probably a good sign.

When she gets home, Grandma opens the door with a sigh of relief. "Good goddess Aryll, I was wondering where you were!" Aryll quickly prepares an excuse about extra homework or after-school activity, but Grandma just reaches out a gnarled claw for her slate. "I need that thing! The races are almost on!" She snatches the little device and throws her creaking body on the creaking couch, muttering ecstatically to herself about not having to share a screen with the women from the bridge club who have the audacity to bet against Epona.

"You shouldn't even wager on that stuff," Aryll says, pointlessly. "It's not even fun to watch. It's just a bunch of kokiri-sized narcissists jumping on a poor animal's back and smacking its ass until it runs itself to death."

"Now's not the time to get on that high horse—heh." Grandma chuckles, big-knuckled fingers tapping nonsensically on the screen. "Also," she adds, clearly as an afterthought, "watch your mouth, young lady."

Aryll finds a bag of rapidly-cooling takeout on the table, with plates set for both her and Link. Her stomach gurgles, reminding her adamantly that she again spent her lunch money on coffee. She shrugs off her jacket, drops her bag, piles her plate high and joins her grandmother in the living room.

"How do I get this damn-fangled thing to work?" Grandma asks.

"I'll do it."

"No, I don't want you to do it for me, I want you to show me _how._ "

After a good half hour of intergenerational unintelligibility, Aryll finally manages to wrestle the slate from her grandmother and bring up the broadcast of the night races.

"There she is! There's the woman of the hour!" Grandma chirps, adjusting her glasses and squinting at a blur of red against a backdrop of browns and blacks. Epona's coloration, Grandma once told her, is indicative of an ancient Faronian pedigree, once common but now virtually wiped out due to their overuse in the War. Epona is apparently the last of a dying breed—as if that's uncommon in Hyrule nowadays.

"Hey, Grandma," Aryll says, narrowing her eyes at a small streak of white at the edge of the tiny screen. "Look on the sidelines. Isn't that Ilia?"

"Eh? Maybe. Could be Hylia, for all I can see."

"Not Hylia, Grandma, _Ilia_."

"Oh, I wonder? Did she graduate already?"

"I don't know, maybe."

The knob of the old front door quakes and clinks, and the termite-eaten plank swings open. Link enters, taps the door closed with his foot, and wanders like a redead past the couches to the kitchen without a word. His hair is more disheveled than usual, his meticulously ironed clothes wrinkled and dirty, and he clings to his briefcase like a drowning man clinging to a buoy.

"Exciting day at work?" Aryll asks.

"Link, your friend is on the slate," Grandma says. "I think she must've graduated from vet school."

"What?" Link mumbles, shuffling into the kitchen. "Huh, okay."

Aryll hears the tinkling of cutlery, the thump of a dropped briefcase. "I thought you weren't working late," Grandma calls, eyes still glued to the slate, where the horses hover at the starting line. "I was going to ask if you wanted to go out for Gerudo but I just ended up ordering some takeout."

"It's vegetarian," Aryll assures, though she's sure Link doesn't care.

"Thanks," comes the exhausted sigh. A shifting of cloth tells Aryll that he's moving her jacket—oh _shit_ , her truancy letter is still in there. She knows Link doesn't have to see that; he's already got enough worry to fry his nerves to a big collective crisp. Maybe he'll be too fixated on eating to glimpse it, in which case Aryll will just have to slip it out later and ask Grandma to sign it. Her eyesight's too far gone to read these sorts of things carefully anyway. Aryll will just have to tell her it's a permission slip for something.

"It's starting," Grandma says excitedly, loose fist shaking like she's ready to throw imaginary dice.

The horses pour out of the starting gates with a cheer from the crowd. Epona snorts and heaves, inching her way up the line promisingly. Despite herself, Aryll can't tear her eyes away from the horses as they scream across the mud, sweat and breath lit like steam from the floodlights. But she keeps one pointed ear perked toward the kitchen, listening for that unmistakable crinkle of unfolding paper, waiting for the moment Link might discover the letter.

When Epona overtakes the leader, Aryll grits her teeth and puts one hand over her peering through the cracks in her fingers. Neck in neck, the horses pant toward the finish line. "I can't watch this," she says.

"Come on, old girl," Grandma mutters. "Show that young'un what you're made of."

Aryll can't tell which horse is ahead. They appear to her almost like the same animal, heads bobbing and hooves beating in perfect synchronization. As they fly across the final stretch, Aryll can feel her grandmother's hand clutch her knee in anticipation of the victory.

When Epona falls, throwing her rider from her back and tumbling to the ground in a knot of flailing red limbs, Aryll releases a pained breath she didn't know she was holding. Grandma lets out a wail of disappointment beside her, and the other horses leap through the cloud of dust toward the finish. Medics rush from the sidelines to treat both horse and rider, and Aryll shuts her eyes tight.

"I told you I can't take this," she says.

"Gods _dammit_ ," sighs grandma. "And I had such faith in her! Well, it was supposed to be her last race anyway. Rest in peace, old girl. You'll make a great glue."

" _Grandma!_ "

"Just the way the world works, Aryll. You don't have to like it, but what can you do about it?"

"Give Ilia a call? Who knows," she opens one eye to see if there's any blood, any limbs bent exactly as they shouldn't be, "she might be able to fix Epona. Or at least… convince them to let her retire."

"I'm sure Ilia will try her best. She always was a nice girl." Grandma cups her chin, smiling weakly. "Maybe you _should_ give her a call. And get your big brother to talk to her."

"I'm telling you, Grandma, they're not getting back together," Aryll says, switching off the screen on her slate.

"Why not?"

"Because—"

"He deserves a sweet girl like that. And she was already like a sister to you—shares the same kind heart. Maybe too kind, I'd say. Can't hurt to learn a little hardness." Aryll can tell Grandma is trying to count her losses from the race. "In the War we'd have to kill our own horses for a bad leg. We were never allowed to cry over them."

"You never did, though," Aryll says.

"I didn't, but I did kill my fair share of rats on the ship. Can't afford to be nice to them. And now I hear people have them as pets—the world's changing, I suppose."

"I suppose," Aryll concedes. From the corner of her eye she spots Link slowly, silently trudging his way down the hall. When he disappears into his bedroom, Aryll slips off the couch. In the kitchen, she sees Shad's letter sitting open on the table, unsigned.

Aryll finds Link curled up on his bed, muddy shoes on the covers.

"Uh… hey," she says.

"Hey," he replies, noncommittally.

"Long day?"

"Don't ask me about it."

"All right, well, um." Clearly he's not in the mood to scold her. His eyes are dull and emptied from exhaustion, and she starts to wonder if he even mustered the energy to read the letter. Perhaps he decided he didn't want to deal with its contents.

Aryll knows she ought to take advantage of the situation while she can. "So… seeing as you're not mad at me, wanna play pass the pigs or something?"

"Sorry, Aryll, I'm not really up to it."

"Cards, maybe? A quick game to get your mind off things?"

Link drapes one arm over his forehead. "Uh…"

"Look, if you teach me how to gamble, then I can make some money for us and Grandma can sit back and keep her unlucky hands out of it."

He lets out a half-hearted chuckle. "What makes you think I know how to gamble?"

"I dunno, you just know things. How to do everything."

"I'm sorry, but I'm really tired."

"Oh… okay. Hey, how about… wanna hear what I've written today?"

She expects him to lift his arm and give her a stern look, to tell her to focus on her schoolwork—especially the applicable subjects. But he just gives her a smile and nods. "Okay."

So she pulls out her slate and reads him a story that she had nearly finished in the café that day. As she begins, a hint of performance anxiety leaks from her sweat glands, and she suddenly hopes she won't embarrass herself, even if it is just in front of her overworked, dead-eyed brother.

This story, unlike many of her others, is not about a pig. It's about a prince who happened to own a pig (one of the cute little black ones, with a kink in its tail), but it's mostly about the prince. If Aryll allows herself to brag, it's got some pretty insightful stuff to say about monarchy and the class struggle, about animal welfare and ethical consumption under Hyrulean capitalism, with just the perfect touch of romance. It's in some dire need of editing, but she thinks it's engaging enough.

But when Aryll sees that Link's eyes have closed and his breathing has slowed to the tempo of deep sleep, she decides to make some changes in the narrative.

"Once there was a prince with a pig. But the pig doesn't really matter in this story. The prince was a nice guy, and his kingdom was peaceful, and all the peasants had everything they ever needed. There were no nefarious dukes or evil viziers plotting against him, but that wouldn't matter anyway. He was so good at sword fighting they wouldn't have stood a chance—he won every tournament the nation held, but he somehow got this weird notion in his head that his kingdom was in some sort of danger. Even though his little sister, the princess, was happy as can be, even though the kingdom was generally self-governing and the monarchy was mostly just there for show, he thought he had to keep fighting, keep working, keep torturing himself. He built walls to keep his kingdom from danger, he kept starting skirmishes and fending off invasions and threats that weren't even there. He was so busy defending his kingdom he forgot to do anything else. He'd wake up every day and wonder why he was miserable, and he'd have no clue, because he was really, really dumb. Then one day, after talking to his little sister, who was the smart sibling, he realized he should stop all this nonsense, take advantage of his fencing scholarship and go back to school, which was something he actually liked, and was actually really fucking good at. The end, gods dammit."

Link is snoring heavily by now, so Aryll puts her slate away. She tugs off his uncharacteristically muddy shoes, throws the blanket over him, and tucks it tightly around his shoulders before turning off the lamp and going back to the kitchen for leftovers.

* * *

Zelda is immensely thankful her father's galas start fashionably late, since it gives her enough time to arrive fashionably later.

By the time she shows her face at the event—some silent auction for some charity or another—she's fully cleaned, fully dressed and almost fully calmed down. She prides herself on being quite good at putting on the right face for the right place, but she knows she can't fully banish her look of worried frustration. Impa's taught her well, but she hasn't quite mastered the ancient Sheikah art of maintaining stoic expressionlessness in the event of everything going horribly wrong all at once.

She supposes poverty, war, and the slow extermination of one's entire people might grant one an appreciation of what truly counts as upsetting. But Zelda, having been born and raised with no shortage of silver spoons in her mouth, finds she can't convince herself to calm down by thinking about how worse it could be.

In truth, she's not really _sure_ how worse it could be, and that's the upsetting part. If only she had a clear view of the situation, she could calm down or rile herself up accordingly. If she had managed to get a look in that goddamn briefcase, she might have something of a clue. But as it is now, all she has for her effort is sixteen rupees and a pair of silk socks. It's all she can do to not scream, to not throw herself out the window, tear off her gown, kick off her heels and chase down that greasy little businessman, that scrawny little cowardly—

She stops herself and remembers to smile. Someone, probably an old friend of her father's, is waving at her, and she raises a gloved hand to wave back. Satisfied, the old man returns to his conversation, and she lets herself release a sigh. The string quartet takes a five minute break, a few guests line up to bid on impenetrably abstract works of art, and Zelda grabs a drink off the nearest serving tray. She doesn't know what it is, but she downs it, hoping it'll calm her nerves.

Impa hasn't shown her face yet, which could mean one of two things—either she's still out on the streets, wandering aimlessly after a Sheikah thief, or she's caught the poor stranger who took her briefcase and is now in the act of interrogating him. Zelda's stomach drops a little of its own accord and she holds in a burp. _It's unladylike_ , the voice of her father echoes in her head as she rubs her throat.

She's got to get that briefcase back. She's fairly sure she can find the man—whoever he is—if given a good few hours to research, but she can't account for any accidents that might happen in the meantime. She hopes he'll be able to take care of himself (or at least of the briefcase), until she tracks him down again. And if she's really desperate, there's always Midna. She hasn't seen the Twili since graduation, but that bitch owes her a favor or two. Yes, things will be fine. Everything will turn out fine, everything will be quite dandy, peachy, in fact. Zelda bites her lip, laying her drink with shaking hands on the nearest empty table, and searches for another one. There's nothing she can do now but wait until this whole party is over. Then she'll be free. She just has to distract herself until then.

So she drinks and watches the guests. There are a few higher-ups in government, here and there, wandering in grey suits and long dresses, talking seriously and drinking even more so. Occasionally one will leave his or her bid on an original Yuga, probably just to keep up the appearance of being busy. The artist himself is suspiciously absent from the gala, but he seems to be the only name in town who didn't show. Every face in business is here: the Zunaris, the Beedles, the Stockwells—even the old tycoon Malo himself, tiny and plump as a child, sitting comfortably in his wheelchair as his assistant pushes him around and apologizes for his employer's curt speech and occasional rude gestures. Zelda's father endures Malo's crude attempts at socializing, shakes hands with all present, and altogether plays the host perfectly. Occasionally he eyes her over the crowd and gives her a wink. Knowing this might be the only day this week she sees him, she makes sure to wink back.

In the far corner near the quartet, Noble Pursuit in hand, towers a familiar man. He stands a head taller at least than all those around him, his red beard is trimmed and bright, his suit impeccably cut—it's difficult not to notice Makeel Ganondorf in a crowd. He's speaking to several of her father's partners—probably cutting a deal about spiffing up his fleet of frankly dangerous sand seals. Zelda knows there is little hope for the vehicles, since Ganondorf manages his business so distantly and with such little regard for efficiency it's almost as if the service's sole purpose is to provide teenagers with safe vehicles in which to smoke firegrass. She supposes Ganondorf is more interested in his political career at this point, and can't be bothered with sand seals.

She watches the man for a while, admiring his confident smile and the way he holds the world's pinkest cocktail in his huge hand like a work of art. Zelda doesn't like Noble Pursuits—they're too sweet for her, but the way Ganondorf downs them she thinks she ought to consider giving them another chance. Clearly there is something about them that she's missing. She's already swaying on her feet, but she supposes she ought to tap the nearest busboy and ask him to get one for her.

A chill stops her in her tracks. Like a shadow, Impa appears beside her, all scowl and crossed arms. Zelda's heart tumbles over itself half in relief and half in terror, and she turns, putting on her most innocent grin.

"Why the sunglasses?" she asks uselessly. "Are you hungover?"

She waits for the barest twitch of a smile on Impa's face, but the Sheikah doesn't give it to her. Instead, an eyebrow rises behind the impenetrable black shades. "Your father seems upset," Impa says.

Zelda looks over her shoulder at the smiling, white-haired man—he's now making his way over to Ganondorf and shaking his hand vigorously. He seems happy as the proverbial clam. Yes, something must be very wrong. "Why should he be upset?" Zelda asks. "Sales are good, and all he talks about is how they're going to get better."

"Has he not spoken to you of what happened at the King Red Lion building?"

"No, what happened?"

"A break-in."

"Oh gods, really? When?"

"Early evening. Right in the middle of the shift change for security."

"It makes sense," Zelda mutters, trying not to sound defensive. "What idiot robs a building without knowing when the guards change?" The twitch she was aiming for appears at the edge of Impa's mouth. "So what did they take?"

The smile leaves as quickly as it comes. "That, I can't tell you. What I _can_ tell you is to be careful. Clearly there is someone on the loose without the best interests of your family in mind."

"So… you didn't catch them?"

"No."

Zelda hopes her sigh of relief sounds close enough to a sigh of disappointment.

Impa takes a breath. "We might've been luckier in looking at the security footage had the culprit not been proficient in Sheikah shadowcraft."

A bead of sweat gathers at Zelda's temple. "Magic? That's odd. Not many people use magic anymore."

"No," Impa says. "Not many." The unreadable black sunglasses shine as she looks Zelda over.

Zelda doesn't dare wipe of the bead of sweat that's now crawling past her ear. Her neck burns, her eyes dart, and she mercifully spies an escape pacing back and forth by the buffet. "Impa," she says. "Maybe you should go scowl somewhere else. Clearly that walking pompadour wants to talk to me."

Impa glances over her shoulder. "I'm a bodyguard. Cockblocking is part of the job."

"Not anymore, you're not. Head of security has better things to do."

"You'd avoid him anyway, if you had any sense," Impa says. "And I better not see you reach for another drink. You've had enough."

"I'll decide that, thanks," Zelda says. She thinks she's been acting superbly sober, but with Impa it doesn't matter. That woman's senses are so uncannily keen—especially regarding Zelda's moods, thoughts and intentions—it's almost like she can read her mind.

 _But she can't_ , Zelda reassures herself, _probably._

She watches Impa retreat into the crowd, black suit blending in with all the others. Zelda breathes a short sigh of relief, but she can almost feel the Sheikah's eyes on her as the pompadour approaches, introducing itself as "Groose, you know, from the commercials."

Zelda reaches out for another drink from a passing tray and knows it's going to be a long night.


End file.
